Well, crap, I figured out the problem...

Two broken tiny SMD components on the traces leading to the VGA pins on the DVI-I connectors... one from each connector.

L515 and L514. I believe they are inductors? These look like they'd be incredibly hard to replace... four TINY legs on each one. Definitely not something that could be done with a soldering iron.

Anyone have any idea if there's any way to know what values these would have and if there's a somewhat realistic fix possible? I have a hot air gun but I've never even used it and its a cheap one from Radio Shack (single temp) so I doubt it'd be a good idea for me to attempt a repair like this with an otherwise working card.

I'll be honest, I was mainly interested in selling the card since I have a 6800GT that would suit me fine for one of my later AGP systems. I'm sure the vast majority of people out there would just use an LCD equipped with DVI on a card like this anyway, but still, having both VGA ports messed up has to hurt the value a bit.

Is there any possibility that an inductor in these locations is "unimportant" and could just be jumped with a wire? I've heard of people doing this with other components but my understanding of complex circuits like this is quite low.

EDIT: Sadly the pictures are gone from this thread but I see mention here of the inductors just being "filters" that are bypassed with no side effects.
Lost my Green Signal - How to repair a VGA out?

Can confirm that you can just bridge these final inductors on the analog RGB lines and it'll give you the color back with no ill effects.
Looking at the pictures seems that you only have to bridge the two adjacent pins closer to the DVI connectors, like this:

1[ ] [ ]
2|     |
3[x]-[x]
4 L51x

The topmost two pins seem to connect to the ground plane. Please check with a multimeter if possible.

133MHz wrote:

Can confirm that you can just bridge these final inductors on the analog RGB lines and it'll give you the color back with no ill […]
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Can confirm that you can just bridge these final inductors on the analog RGB lines and it'll give you the color back with no ill effects.
Looking at the pictures seems that you only have to bridge the two adjacent pins closer to the DVI connectors, like this:

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1[ ] [ ]
2|     |
3[x]-[x]
4 L51x

The topmost two pins seem to connect to the ground plane. Please check with a multimeter if possible.

Thanks! I actually just did this right before you posted and tested it with a multimeter. I checked the other ones that were still intact. It ended up being the two right side pins that were supposed to be bridged. Like this:

1[ ] [x]
2|     |
3[ ]-[x]
4 L51x

I got bold and decided to just do it. It was fairly easy to bridge the pins with solder and it completely fixed the problem! A surprisingly easy fix. 😀

I'm going to cover these connections with some clear nail polish to protect them.

Glad you got it working, and also glad that you checked and didn't blindly follow my incorrect advice 😵

Man this is crazy... turns out my 6800GS had the same problem on the VGA output! I'd been testing it on DVI-I until a little while ago.

Did the same fix (this time using a tiny bit of wire-wrapping wire... amazing stuff!) and the problem is gone!

This has been a productive day... 🤣